Q&A: Max Greenfield's Idea of Romance Involves Hot Coffee

"You know what's romantic? Consistency."

Max Greenfield, best known as Schmidt on Fox's New Girl, is playing another snobby, dickish guy, this time in the movie About Alex, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend. The story follows a group of once-tight college friends who reunite after one person from their circle attempts suicide. (The movie, written and directed by newcomer Jesse Zwick, also stars Aubrey Plaza, Jane Levy, and Jason Ritter, to name a few people from the cast.) Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Greenfield about playing another pretentious character, his real-life obsession with Bruce Springsteen, and his idea of romance, which does not involve Valentine's Day.

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Obviously suicide is such a heavy subject. Although, that's not really what the movie is about. No. That just happens to be the catalyst for this group of friends to come back together. I feel like you hit this point in your life when you're just out of college, and you're in your 20s, and now you're on your own, and you feel this pressure — especially nowadays, with these young venture capitalists — you all of a sudden feel this pressure to succeed and achieve and go after your goals, and in order to do that, you're so … the only thing on your mind is thinking about yourself. And you're so ego-oriented, and you're just like, "This is the moment where I'm going after it!" And for the most part you're so focused on that. And it allows you to, probably, neglect the others around you, make some mistakes, and, you know, fuck some people over [laughs].

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It happens. Look, that stuff happens in your 20s. And then I think you get to your 30s and you have a little bit of a better understanding of what all that was, and then you kind of look back and you go, "Oh man" ... you assess the damage. "Okay, now it's time to recover from some of that stuff." And I think [the movie] is about that moment. We're now forced into that moment of recovery.

Your character is painfully pretentious. Do you share any of the same views on social media, music, Bruce Springsteen, Arcade Fire, which are basically that they all suck? Oh god, no. The Bruce Springsteen moment was one that I'm very proud of. [His character says you can't trust anyone who is that fired up about being from New Jersey.] Jesse [Zwick] had written a joke specifically about Springsteen that apparently we couldn't use, because it involved calling him "The Boss," and I guess there was some infringement on "The Boss," and for whatever reason we couldn't use it. Fine. I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I mean, I love him so much, it's — anyway. So we sat down, and we were like, "We've gotta write a new Bruce Springsteen joke right now." And, I don't know how to do it, because I refused to try and write a joke that was damning of him in any way.

You danced around it quite well. I felt like, "Man, did we hit a bull's-eye!"

So was this your idea? How involved in the script were you? I was never involved in the script at all, but there was that moment, and it was like a fun game for me, because I knew we couldn't use [the original joke], and Jesse was bogged down with doing 150 other things, and I could see him going, "We'll figure it out," because it was a small thing for him. But I felt like, "No, this is important. And I'm going to take it upon myself." And it was a good refuge for me during such a serious film, so I was like, "Let me step away from this and I'm going to spend the next day and a half trying to write a Bruce Springsteen joke." And we came up with that one, and I was really proud of that one. That was some of the hardest joke-writing I've ever had to do.

Do you do a lot of joke-writing? Yeah, quite a bit. And that one was tough, because I love him so much, and I refused to say anything that was negative about him.

Even in character! I would not do it. I couldn't even find a reason why the character would necessarily make fun of him — I mean, I suppose I could, but he's just that great.

Now, you play these snobby characters so well — this guy and also Schmidt. Do people assume you're like Schmidt? No, I think people are a lot smarter — sometimes — than anybody gives them credit for. They get it. They're savvy.

Yeah, but it's always a little blurred. Like, the women in Orange is the New Black have said, "People are surprised that I wear makeup in real life!" Yeah, every once in a while someone will be like, "Schmidt! We wanna party with you!'" and I'm like, "Nah, probably not going to do that." I'm so seldomly out and about. And I don't really put myself in situations where I know they're going to expect a certain thing from me, and I'm not going to be able to deliver, and that's going to be a problem.

Schmidt has done so many ridiculous things to get attention from girls. What's the craziest thing you've ever done, even going back to elementary school, high school?I don't know, I've been married for a long time.

How about your proposal? My proposal was not very good. But, I don't know, I think the element of surprise is good — this is my problem with Valentine's Day. I hate the idea that there's a specific day that I have to show my love for my wife; I think it should be a surprise on any given day. My theory on Valentine's Day is — you know what's romantic? Consistency. Like, I make my wife a cup of coffee every morning. That's romantic. I feel like the element of surprise is always fun. Like, "I just bought this for you for no reason." "Why did you do it?" "I don't really know, I was just thinking about you today."

See, that's very un-Schmidt-like. That's very sweet. Yeah. I haven't done that in a while, though!

And no one from your bar mitzvah has leaked those before! It wasn't during the days of social media, and I don't know that people were out there, like, Instagramming photos of my bar mitzvah.

Do you think that maybe this could get the ball rolling on hosting? I showed them to Lorne [Michaels]. I ran into Lorne at a party and I showed him.

What did Lorne say when he saw them? He was laughing. I was like, "I made him laugh."

That's like an audition right there! He chuckled. I ran into Bill Hader and Bill was like, "If you ever see him, you have got to show those pictures to him." So I did, and I think he got a good laugh out of it.

Is hosting that on your bucket list? I mean, people have talked to me about it before. Yeah, it would be amazing.